Tulsa Vision 2025: Cesar Pelli

Design work begins in just a few days for Tulsa's proposed new downtown arena. The building will stretch over four blocks and could become a landmark that pumps new blood into the heart of the city.

Thursday, April 29th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Design work begins in just a few days for Tulsa's proposed new downtown arena. The building will stretch over four blocks and could become a landmark that pumps new blood into the heart of the city.

News on 6 anchor Terry Hood went to New Haven, Connecticut to get the first interview with the man charged with turning Tulsa's vision, into bricks and mortar.

Cesar Pelli was greeted in Tulsa almost like royalty. A lot of hope, along with 125-million tax dollars is riding on his shoulders. â€œThis project has the potential of being the sparkle that ignites a new renaissance in downtown Tulsa. If this happens, nothing would make me happier.â€

And when it comes to sparkle, Cesar Pelli usually delivers. He's won architecture's most prestigious awards. He has graced the covers of scores of magazines and changed the skylines of cities all over the globe. His crowning achievement to date stands in Malaysia, the Petronas Towers of Kaula Lampur, the tallest buildings in the world.

While Pelli is best known for his skyscrapers, he's also known for creating beautiful, but functional public spaces. Like at the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center in New York. The winter garden is a kaleidoscope of glass, steel, granite and marble. People come to stroll in the outdoor plaza. To take time with friends. To catch a snapshot of New York. Cesar Pelli says he often comes here himself. â€œItâ€™s amazing how out of inert stone or bricks or steel, a thing so full of joy can develop. Just so wonderful and rich and alive.â€

Pelli will bring that same passion to Tulsa's arena; he's promised the city a design with "exuberance". â€œIt really wants to be like that.â€ And like all of Pelli's designs, it will be a process of teamwork. Pelli is headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut, where he works with a staff of 84 architects and designers. For the arena, he'll also work with two architectural firms in Tulsa. But the essence of the design, he says, will come from the city itself. â€œTo me, the best qualities of a building, the best symbolic qualities of a building are not something I cook up in my head and impose on the building. They need to grow out of the soil of Tulsa. If they don't have firm roots, these are going to be gestures that after a few years, people will wonder, why did we do that? What does this have to do with us?â€

To understand Tulsa's roots, Pelli will spend time here over the next few months. He'll consider the city's light, its climate, its green, rolling hills and its people. â€œProbably no two persons in Tulsa have the same set of images. But all of you together will have, I am certain, a coherent set of images about today, the past and the future.â€

Pelli says his job is to interpret, to understand those dreams and images and transform them into a work of art. One he hopes generations of Tulsans will be proud to call their own.

Terry Hood: â€œWhat would you most like the people of Tulsa to know about how you're approaching this project?â€ Pelli: â€œThat we will do it thinking of them. With great care.â€

Pelli says the architects will hold a series of public meetings in Tulsa this summer to try to talk to as many people as possible. And starting next week, they'll begin mapping out the specific dimensions for the building. By late fall, we should have a pretty good idea of what it will look like.